


your love is the beacon

by barelyprolific



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bedside Vigils, Cuddling & Snuggling, Friendship, Injury Recovery, Levi is a good boyfriend, M/M, Schmico Week 2019, Taryn is a Good Friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-01 02:12:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18326591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barelyprolific/pseuds/barelyprolific
Summary: Nico is injured in an accident.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **_Schmico Week_** over on tumblr. This fic is already complete and will be posted in its entirety over the next three days.

Taryn is in the process of shrugging out of her lab coat and into her sensible, pale pink blazer when Dahlia pushes open the door to the residents’ lounge, stumbling towards her cubby. Her eyes are drooping, face pale, circles dark under her eyes. She barely glances at Taryn as her forehead hits the narrow strip of wood between cubbies.

“You’re on Levi duty tonight,” she says, exhaustion so heavy in her voice that it weighs her volume down.

“What? I thought it was Casey’s turn.”

Dahlia shakes her head. “Casey’s still on call for another,” she yawns, pushes through, “eight hours, and right now he’s in surgery with Dr. Altman.”

“Man, this sucks.” Taryn just got off her own eighteen hour shift, and she’s been looking forward to going home and going to bed alone since hour six, when she was vomited on twice. “He’s not going to budge.”

“You have to at least try.”

“How long are we going to let him do this?” Purse in hand, Taryn closes her cubby, turns to face Dahlia. “It’s been a week already.”

Dahlia shrugs. “He’ll leave when he’s ready, but I don’t think that’s going to be until he knows for sure.”

“Which won’t be until Nico wakes up,” Taryn sighs. “Or doesn’t.”

“He will,” Dahlia says, firm. “He has to.”

*

A hand on his shoulder jostles Levi out of his sleep. He jerks, sitting up quickly, reaching for his glasses--he’d given up on contacts three days before.

“What is it? Is he waking up? What’s going on?”

The same hand presses him back into the chair, and gentle hands slide his old frames on his unshaven face. Taryn’s face comes into focus. Behind her, Nico is still lying, too still and too pale, in the hospital bed, white bandages wrapped around the top of his head.

At least they’ve stopped bleeding through.

“Nico’s not waking up, he’s still stable--I’m just letting you know I’m going home. Do you want a ride?”

Levi cranes his neck to look around Taryn, get a better view of Nico. He shakes his head.

“No, I’m staying.”

“Levi, it’s been a week.”

“And he has three more,” Levi snaps. “I’m staying.”

“You’re lucky Bailey’s being so cool about this. You could lose your spot in the program.”

“Taryn, I can’t leave. His family isn’t here. He doesn’t have any friends in Seattle because he was too busy working. I’m all he has. I’m staying.” Levi settles back into his chair, eyes trained on his motionless boyfriend.

Taryn scowls, hands on her hips. “At least take a shower. Do you want to stink when Nico does wake up? And eat something!”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Nico’s gonna be pissed when I tell him you didn’t take care of yourself.”

That seems to get Levi to pause. He considers Taryn carefully.

“I guess I could eat,” he concedes, slowly.

“Come back to my place, Levi. Eat, take a shower. Sleep.”

“What if he wakes up while I’m gone?”

“Then whoever’s here will tell him I had to literally drag you away, and he will thank me.” Taryn holds out her hand. “Come on.”

She’s not holding her breath or anything, but she still lets one out when Levi takes it and lets her drag him to his feet.

“You really do smell awful.” She knocks her shoulder against his as they walk down the hall. Levi gives her a sour look.

“I haven’t bathed in a week, what do you expect?”

“I don’t know man, I got puked on today and you smell worse than I do.”

“I hate you.”

Taryn wraps her arm around him.

“That’s fine.”


	2. Chapter 2

Eight days, six hours, seventeen minutes and forty-one seconds.

That’s how long it takes Nico to wake up, after his surgery. After Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Lincoln had spent nine hours making sure that Nico was going to survive at all.

Eight days, six hours, seventeen minutes and forty-one seconds. Levi is in the middle of reading an article from a medical journal out loud. He’d borrowed a stack of them from from Dr. Pierce.

Apparently, they like to talk about advances in medicine together. Levi’d had no clue until the accident.

Levi’s mouth is feeling a little dry, so he’s reaching for his water bottle as he rushes through the end of a sentence, and Nico makes a noise. It’s barely audible, kind of a cough. Levi freezes.

Slowly lowers the journal.

Nico’s eyes are still closed, but he grimaces, breathes in deeply, body shifting between the sheets. Levi sets the journal in the chair beside him, stands up. He’d pulled the chair so close to the bed that his knees smack into it, but Levi doesn’t care.

His fingers are trembling as they wrap around Nico’s. Levi waits.

Against his palm, Nico’s fingers twitch. Once, twice. Squeeze Levi’s hand. There’s barely any strength behind it, but it’s enough. Nico is responding to his touch.

Levi takes a sharp breath.

“Nico,” he whispers, studying his face. “I really hope you’re waking up.”

“Keep…talking…” The words are barely above a murmur, Nico’s lips hardly moving.

They still moved.

“I can do that.” Levi squeezes Nico’s hand. With his other one, he reaches for the call button, presses it. “So, um. You’ve been out for a little over a week. You fell while you were rock climbing. Your brain had some pretty bad swelling, and one of your legs… But Dr. Shepherd and Dr. Link took care of you, and, um. I’ve been here. Almost the whole time. Taryn made me leave last night, but I came in with her this morning. I was only gone a couple of hours.”

Levi pauses. Swallows. Nico’s fingers are twitching again, like he’s trying to rub them against Levi’s hand.

“Um, I met your parents.” Levi laughs a little. It sounds wet. His eyes are stinging, too; he pushes up his glasses to grind his free palm against one for a few seconds. “They flew in after Dr. Lincoln called them. They stayed for a couple of days after the surgery, but, um. When you didn’t wake up right away they had to leave again.”

“Sounds…right…” This time, the words are accompanied by the slightest twitch at the corners of his mouth. Levi’s not sure how to respond, so he plows on.

“I think they liked me. Your mom cried a lot, but she hugged me a lot, too. She said you, um. That you talk about me. Sometimes.” Levi’s voice gets a little rough. He pauses for a moment. Veers the subject in a slightly different direction. “The rest of your family sent flowers, but, um. I had Casey take them to your apartment. Everyone’s been really nice. The ortho nurses keep trying to feed me.” Levi closes his eyes.   

“I love you,” he says. “I was really scared you weren’t going to wake up and I wouldn’t get to say it to you ever again.”

“Love you.” Nico’s voice is a little stronger. Levi opens his eyes again, in time to see Nico’s lips twitch again. “Heard you talking.”

“Dr. Pierce loaned me a bunch of medical journals to read to you. I didn’t know you two were friends.”

“We gossip…about interns…”

With his free hand, Levi pokes Nico, gently, in the chest.

“Very funny.” He leans down, presses a kiss just below the bandages. “If you’re joking, you’re obviously going to be fine.”

“I’d say so.” The arrival of a third voice makes Levi jump, although he doesn’t let go of Nico’s hand. Dr. Shepherd is standing in the doorway of Nico’s room, or rather leaning against it, arms crossed. She’s smiling. “Can you open your eyes, Dr. Kim?”

Shepherd pushes off the doorframe, coming closer to the bed, dropping her arms to pull a flashlight out of her lab coat pocket. Levi switches his attention to anxiously studying Nico’s face, waiting for him to react.

He winces, and then, slowly, Nico opens his eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four months into Nico's recovery.

Levi is asleep, curled up in the chair he had dragged next to their bed almost two years ago, now. For late night studying, so that he doesn’t disturb Nico’s sleep, but can stay close.

Levi’s always thinking of things that way–in terms of how he can accommodate other people. He’s not always graceful about it, but he tries. Right now, he’s sleeping in the chair because Nico’s leg is still healing.

It’s been four months since the accident, and Levi’s slept in that damn chair every night of them. Nico misses holding him, but even cuddling is something his boyfriend approaches with extreme caution, now that Nico can’t walk.

A full recovery in six months has been promised to Nico by not only Link, but Dr. Torres, whom the Chief had fly in as a favor. To Nico or Levi, Nico’s still not sure; whatever happened between Dr. Bailey and Levi while he was out, the woman had gone from barely remembering Nico’s name to coming to check on him personally while he was still at the hospital. He appreciates the favor, but that recovery is another two months in the future, and Nico wants to cuddle his boyfriend now.

It’s been four months.

“Levi,” he whispers into the dark of the room, reaching over and tapping the arm of the chair. “Hey, Levi. Babe, wake up.”

Levi stirs, murmurs something incoherent, and nuzzles deeper into his arms, the exact way he used to nuzzle into Nico’s chest.

Nico tries again.

“Babe, wake up.” He taps the chair a little more firmly. It seems to do the trick, because Levi is raising his head with a yawn, reaching for his glasses.

“Nico? Do you need something?”

“Yeah,” Nico whispers back, although he’s not sure why he’s whispering, besides the late hour. “I really do.”

“What is it?” Levi sits up a little straighter, yawning and rubbing his eyes under the frames of his glasses. His hair is sticking up wildly. Nico’s heart aches.

“I need you to come lie down with me.”

Levi pauses mid-stretch–his shirt had just started to ride up–slumps forward.

“I don’t want to hurt your leg.”

“You’re not going to hurt my leg. You’re going to hurt your back if you keep sleeping in that chair.”

“My back is fine.”

“You said yesterday you made Taryn give you a massage on your lunch break.”

Levi sighs, rubs his temples.

“If I get in bed with you, I might accidentally kick you, or–or tangle my legs with yours and undo all of Link’s hard work by tossing and turning…”

“You won’t.” Nico makes sure to keep his voice even, sound certain. “Please just get in the bed.”

He can tell that he’s wearing Levi down, because Levi keeps casting those murky eyes of his towards the empty space where he usually lies down. Even in shadows, Nico can follow his gaze.

“I miss holding you,” he wheedles. That’s what does the trick. Levi makes a small noise, stumbles to his feet.

When he climbs onto the bed, he does so gingerly, not even touching Nico until he’s settled down, glasses off again, and can roll onto his side, carefully press his cheek to Nico’s shoulder. One of his hands curls in the t-shirt Nico’s wearing. Nico wiggles his arm around until he can wrap it around Levi, pull him closer.

“Better?” Levi asks through a yawn, nuzzling into Nico’s chest. His heart feels like it might explode, so Nico leans down just enough to kiss the top of Levi’s head.

“Much.”

**Fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> I would really love some feedback. Comments make me want to keep writing.


End file.
